THE ADORE PROJECT - Key Persons
Amanda Harberg is a composer and pianist whose work communicates on emotional, spiritual and intellectual levels. With music described by the New York Times as "a sultry excursion into lyricism", Harberg weaves her deep admiration for the classical tradition together with contemporary influences to create a distinctively personal style. The Flutist Quarterly has called her music "heartfelt, expressive, powerful and beautiful", and composer John Corigliano says that her music "invigorates the brain and touches the soul".
Dr. Harberg's works have been presented at leading institutions including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Bargemusic, and at annual conventions of the National Flute Association and International Clarinet Association. Her music has been recognized by awards such as a Fulbright Hays fellowship, Juilliard's Peter Menin prize, New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, a New York State Council on the Arts Grant, a MacDowell Colony summer residency, and her flute music has been recognized multiple times by the National Flute Association's Newly Published Music Awards. In Winter 2020, the Ars Vitalis Music Series and the Mid-Atlantic Flute Convention will both present concerts dedicated exclusively to her music.
Recent commissions include works for the Philadelphia Orchestra's Sound All Around series, the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Bay Atlantic Symphony, the Albany Symphony's Dogs of Desire, the Juilliard School, the New York Youth Symphony's First Music Program, the New Jersey Youth Symphony, the Dorian Wind Quintet, and for the Harmonium Choral Society. Harberg is currently at work on her upcoming Concerto for Piccolo and Orchestra for Erica Peel (piccoloist of the Philadelphia Orchestra), which will be the featured world premiere at the 2020 Dallas National Flute Convention's Gala Concerto Concert. Her orchestral works have been performed by the Grand Rapids Symphony, the Round Top Festival Orchestra, the Albany Symphony's Dogs of Desire, the Interlochen Philharmonic, the New Jersey Youth Symphony, the Thuringer Symphonker, the Susquehanna Symphony, the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra, and by many other orchestras worldwide.
Harberg has also received a number of consortium commissions, including Court Dances: Suite for Flute and Piano (2017) which was commissioned by a consortium of 57 flutists, led by Cobus du Toit, and Sonata for Piccolo and Piano (2018) which was commissioned by a consortium of 24 piccolo players, led by Regina Helcher Yost. Several of her works have been used as required competition pieces, including Court Dances (for the Wm. S. Haynes Texas Flute Allstar Competition), and Feathers and Wax (for the Donald Peck International Flute Competition).
Harberg's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra was commissioned by violist Brett Deubner. It was premiered with the National Symphony of Ecuador, and has gone on to be performed by over ten orchestras worldwide with Mr. Deubner as soloist. The concerto can be heard on Naxos American Classics with the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra.
Also active as a concert level pianist, Dr. Harberg has recently performed with Erica Peel (piccoloist of the Philadelphia Orchestra), Robert Langevin (principal flutist of the New York Philharmonic), Martin Chalifour (concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic), Dennis Kim (concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony), YaoGuang Zhai (principal clarinetist of the Baltimore Symphony), Matthew Roitstein (associate principal flutist of the Houston Symphony), and with her composer/performer colleague Valerie Coleman.
As the in-house composer for Common Good Productions, Harberg has composed scores for The Abominable Crime, an award winning feature documentary, and Beyond Borders: Undocumented Mexican Americans which aired over 2,000 times on PBS stations across the country, as well as a number of shorter films for Common Good Productions.
Dr. Harberg is a dedicated educator with more than two decades of experience teaching composition, piano, music theory, aural skills, and 20th/21st century music history. She is in her fourth year of teaching composition at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts, and in the summers she is on the composition faculty at the Interlochen Arts Camp. Harberg began teaching through the Morse Fellowship program, which sends Juilliard students into New York City public schools. She also served on the faculty of the Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program, which is dedicated to educating students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. Harberg has also taught composition at the the Luzerne Music Center, the Rocky Ridge Music Center, and the ASTA Chamber Music Institute. Harberg is a frequent guest at schools and universities where she particularly enjoys speaking to students about how to live an artistically vital and authentic life in today's society.
Furthering her goal of creating bridges between audiences and performers, Harberg has directed and co-directed several music series dedicated to bringing American music to her community, including the Music in Montclair series in Montclair, NJ, and the Music and More series in Glen Ridge, NJ.
Harberg's exclusive publisher, Theodore Presser Company, sells hundreds of copies of her music every year, and her music has been recorded on Naxos, Koch International, American Modern Recordings, Albany and Centaur Records.
Harberg earned her PhD from Rutgers University School of Graduate Studies where she studied with Robert Aldridge, and completed her undergraduate and masters degrees at the Juilliard School, where she studied with Robert Beaser, Stephen Albert, David Diamond. She received a Fulbright/Hays fellowship to study for a year with composer/pianist Frederic Rzewski, and her early studies in music composition were with Andrew Rudin.
Emily Cooley is a Philadelphia-based composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music whose work has been described as "masterfully written and orchestrated" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and "a beautiful delicacy" (Vermont Today). Frequently in dialogue with works of contemporary fiction and critical theory, her music questions conventions of narrative, re-imagines emotional expression, and explores the dynamics of power and vulnerability.
Cooley's orchestral music has been performed by the Nashville, Cincinnati, Minnesota, Louisville, Milwaukee, Berkeley, Sioux City, and Eastern Connecticut symphony orchestras; the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra; and numerous university and conservatory orchestras. Her work Assemble, for multitrack cello, was recently recorded by Ashley Bathgate and will be released on Bathgate's forthcoming album, 8 Track.
Also active as a concert producer and curator, Cooley is a founding member and the current publicity director for Kettle Corn New Music, which produces a year-round series of new music concerts in New York City, hailed for creating "that ideal listening environment that so many institutions aim for: relaxed, yet allowing for concentration" (New York Times). Cooley is also a frequent collaborator with incarcerated musicians at SCI-Graterford in Pennsylvania, and she held the Community Artist Fellowship at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2017-18.
Born in 1990 in Milwaukee, WI, Cooley holds degrees from Yale University, the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music. She has been in residence at Yaddo, Copland House, and the Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and a fellow at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival, and the Norfolk New Music Workshop. She is a recipient of the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the ASCAP Morton Gould Award. Her mentors include John K. Boyle, Kathryn Alexander, Andrew Norman, Stephen Hartke, Jennifer Higdon, David Ludwig, and Mary Javian.